Got Too Many Google Accounts?

If you're like most heavy Internet users, you've got multiple Google accounts and you have to think twice about which Gmail address to give someone. It's not like you set out to have three, or five, or even ten Google accounts. It just kind of happened over time. Can anything be done to streamline your different Google accounts?

A typical story where a user accrues multiple Google accounts goes like this:

Your First Google Account
This account was created back when you first signed up for Gmail or YouTube or any other Google service. Back then, these services where new and you didn't know that Google would be the industry leader that it is today. Therefore, you gave it a name that reflected your rockin' sense of humor, like McLovin@gmail.com. Proud of yourself for coming up with such a clever account name, you distributed it amongst your peers and found yourself using it frequently.

A Professional Google Account for a Professional Life
Now you have to find a new job, which means creating a resume and filling out job applications. This means you need a more professional Gmail address than your hilarious McLovin account. So you create a new account: Mr.Professional@gmail.com, and send it out to dozens of prospective employers. Before you know it, you're using this new professional Google account as much as your original account.

Add Another Google Account for Work
So you land yourself a job! That's great news and it's a sure bet that Mr.Professional@gmail.com was the deciding factor the powers-that-be used in deciding that you will be the company's newest employee. Lets say that on the first day of your new employment you are given new Gmail address that's managed by the company. You will use this new account frequently, just like your other two accounts.

More Reasons for Additional Google Accounts
You're now up to three Google accounts, and you seem to face more situations that require you to make more Google accounts. Situations like:

• You want to sign up to enter a promotion that requires your email address, but you don't want to deal with the potential spam associated with the contest, so you create a new Google account.
• You help a not-so-technologically-savvy friend by uploading their video to YouTube, which means creating a new Google account just for them. Yet, because you created the account from your PC, Google recognizes you under your friend's account every time you visit YouTube, so you end up using it.
• You've got a lot of pent up political opinions that you can no longer keep to yourself. So you unleash it on the world via Blogger (Google's blogging service). Because you don't want your extreme opinions to be traced back to you, you create a new Google account that becomes your online alter ego. This ends up being the account you use to leave comments on YouTube to say things over the Internet that you would never say in real life.

What's a Multi-Account-Google User to Do?
You get the point. At the end of the day, you're responsible for a dozen Google accounts and checking each one while keeping track of all the different passwords becomes a chore. Not to mention that every a Google account is created it automatically gets its own Google+ account.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could merge all of your different Google accounts into one super Google account? It sure would! Unfortunately, you can't, Google won't let you. Here's the policy straight from Google, "It isn't currently possible to merge separate Google Accounts. However, if you'd like to transfer your data from one account to another, this may be done on a per product basis."

Moving data from one account to another and then disabling the old account is a good move that would help you organize your online life, but Google only has this option available for a few selected services. These Google services include:

• AdWords
• Blogger
• Bookmarks (Export and import)
• Contacts (Export and import)
• FeedBurner
• Finance: Export and Import
• Picasa Web Albums
• Places (bulk upload)
• YouTube

Transferring your data from one Google account to another will help streamline your workflow, but it may also complicate certain things like SEO for your company's website. Before you move your data like this, consider answers to these frequently asked questions about moving data provided by Google. For more information go to Dataliberation.org. Directive can also offer you help with email solutions like spam filtering and email security that will alleviate the frustration and risk of working with multiple email accounts. Call us at 607.433.2200 to learn more.

Are you tired of juggling multiple Google accounts? How many Google accounts do you have, and how did you end up with that many? Share with us your thoughts in the comments!